updated 07:50 am EDT, Thu March 19, 2009

MS Launching IE8 Today

Microsoft on Thursday said it would launch Internet Explorer 8 at 12PM Eastern. The app is the company's first significant web browser release since 2006 and is partly meant to address gaps in its feature set compared to other, newer browsers: a new rendering engine makes it more compatible with true W3C web standards while still having support for IE-specific pages. It also has shortcuts to perform context-sensitive tasks through specific websites (such as a Facebook search), visual search suggestions, and a WebClip-like feature known as Web Slices that lets users bookmark specific sections of websites and see them at a glance.

Greater security is also a focus with a private browsing mode and a smart filter for hostile sites. The software will be available for both Windows XP and Vista and will be a core feature of Windows 7.

The release comes just as the company faces increased competition as well as a potential blow to its control of the browser market. While significantly faster and more standards-ready, IE8 is already believed to be outperformed by Apple's Safari 4 as well as by Google's Chrome and the upcoming Mozilla Firefox 3.5. The software is poised to gain significant traction by virtue of its inclusion with Windows 7 but may be made optional in Europe as an ongoing EU antitrust case may force a choice between browsers that lets users install an alternative without ever installing Internet Explorer.

My corporate apps are only certified with IE6. And therefore we cannot go to IE7 even. Users that sneak around and upgrade then call the helpdesk to complain that the application is broken. These are huge software packages that cost big money and much time to upgrade. With more IE versions more support and testing needs to happen. Maybe MS should have been standards compliant long ago but it doesn't matter now. We just need a working browser for our software systems but Microsoft is making that very difficult at best.

AMAZING! I am so looking forward to this. It's so exciting with IE 8. Finally, wow! We will be able to do everything with IE8. Time to celebrate, gather around the computers and install!....Just kidding, who cares about this?

At this point, IE 6 is hurting the Internet more than it's helping it. For regular websites, it's frankly a huge pain to support this dinosaur. And old sites that depend on IE (especially IE 6) always suck because they only work with IE--they don't support Firefox or Chrome for Windows users, and they don't support Mac users.

IE 6 developers; your browser technology is from 2001, it's time to update.

.....Testudo's usual nonsense - MACNN it would really be nice if someone from your website/ company bothered to come down off your high-horse and explain to your Mac-based Readers WHY IN BLOODY h*** you are reporting about IE v8 being released unless Microsoft is planning a Mac Version!

Of course it won;t ever happen (MacNN coming down off it's high-horse - or Testudo ever making sense).

I installed it on my Windblows computer at work. I haven't noticed anything different. I still only use it for browsing my company's intranet. Still unnecessarily complex. It'll stay relegated to the back burner.